The European Commission has invited URJC professors Tomás Zarza and Miguel Sánchez-Moñita and José María Uría, director of the Anastasio de Gracia Foundation's area of culture and documentation center, to present the results achieved by the Robert Capa Festival project was here in a colloquium held in the Europe pavilion of the Madrid Book Fair. Federico Mayor Zaragoza, former president of UNESCO and president of the Culture of Peace Foundation, participated in the event, praising the work of teachers in their effort to create a culture of peace at a time when the principles of the European Union are being threatened by external and internal elements. Similarly, the former president of UNESCO spoke of the urgent need to recover a common memory that recalls the foundations on which the construction of the European Union was built.
The project presented is born from a photograph that the famous photojournalist Robert Capa took in a humble building during the bombing of the Civil War. This image has been the fuse of a social movement that works the values of peace, solidarity and memory through art. As Professor Zarza points out, "we work with the image because it is a main piece of contemporary language and it serves to speak to a generation that needs to come into contact with the memory of its own country." In the same way, Uría Fernández defended that "the photograph taken by Robert Capa, eighty years later, once again reminds us of the horror of war and serves to promote the duty of memory".
The Robert Capa Festival, in which the university has been involved since its creation in 2018, has generated 21 exhibitions in which more than 2300 students have participated, from elementary school to university. This aspect in which art and participation are mixed has been praised by the members of the European Commission present at the event. As Professor Sánchez-Moñita states, "Europe needs new symbols, new figures that recover the founding values of the Union and Robert Capa and his photographs can be that link that we so much need in these difficult times."
As Mayor Zaragoza rightly pointed out, through his extensive experience in the world of international relations, "we must vigorously denounce the crimes of forgetfulness through this type of project in which university and social institutions are involved."